


New Traditions

by MellytheHun



Series: Tumblr Sterek Prompts [12]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pack Bonding, Past Character Death, Tumblr Prompt, fic prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 22:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12945579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: prompt: I was wondering if you would write a fic with Stiles and his dad feeling tense and upset about an upcoming date (Stiles' mom's death). He does his best not to show that he's upset and Derek tries to comfort him and tell him it's okay to be upset.





	New Traditions

Scott and Kira are out hunting some unknown beast while Stiles, Lydia and Derek are poring over some ancient texts on Stiles’ kitchen table. It's late into the night when the Sheriff comes home from a long shift. He looks overworked, exhausted and grim.

Stiles picks up his head and meets his father’s eyes.

The quiet tension that fills the room is thick enough to cut with a knife and it forces Derek to look up.

He watches father and son stare at each other for a while until the Sheriff says, “remember to get flowers tomorrow.”

Stiles nods, body stock still and his father sighs as he climbs the stairs and disappears into his room. After a few silent beats, Stiles clears his throat and goes back to reading. Once his head is bent again, Lydia looks up cooly from her book and lifts a single manicured brow at Derek in question. Derek tells her with his own eyebrows that he’s not sure what just happened.

Under the table, Derek texts Scott about the exchange, describing it as best as he can. 

A few seconds later, he receives:

**Scott: ooohhhhh it’s the anniversary of his mom’s death tomorrow. play it cool. he doesn’t like talking abt it**

Derek frowns at his phone, meets Lydia’s eyes again and gives her a small shake of his head, to tell her not to worry about, but she might perceive it as some sort of 'don't ask,' type attitude. Either way, she gives a little nod and they all return to contemplative silence.

Their research seems futile for a while, finding nothing useful on their monster of the week. Every time Stiles complains, Lydia insists that it’s still productive to find and read the subjects being ruled out of the possible solution list.

Derek’s frustration is only lessened by Stiles’ frustration being louder somehow. 

Stiles sighs aggressively, runs a hand through his hair and throws his weight back in his seat. Lydia looks at him with round, curious eyes and, abruptly, Stiles resigns.

“This is a total bust. We should call it a night," he says.

“Oh, we should?” Lydia asks haughtily, clearly aggravated with Stiles' contrary attitude.

“He’s right,” Derek supplies helpfully.

Lydia twists her head to Derek, opening her mouth to scold him as well, but before she can, he says stoically, "we’ll exhaust ourselves. It won’t be productive if all we're doing is staring at text without reading. We're burnt out. We’ll reconvene in the morning. You need rest too.”

Never one to take given directions, Lydia hesitates. She doesn't look happy about, essentially, being kicked out of Stiles' house when they all vowed to stay up all night, but she must see what Derek is trying to tell her with his eyes, because she concedes and packs her things.

Without any further argument, she tells them both 'goodnight,' (with reluctance), kisses Stiles on the cheek before leaving and pats Derek’s head when she walks by his end of the table. When Derek hears her car pull off the drive, he looks to Stiles and tries to scent him.

There is tension, anxiety and prickly depression. There is a tang to it that Derek recalls Laura having every holiday season. Her depression would spike in the cold weather and the constant reminder that they had no family to gift. During those seasons, she’d give off these scents, with that particular tang and it coincided with her inner frustrations. She would often complain that she “should be over this by now.” It never seemed to matter that Derek told her there was no getting over depression, only through it. 

She was just as stubborn as their mother.

Not that he could exactly claim sainthood.

“Well, while it’s been an immense pleasure skipping lunch _and_ dinner, finding _zero_ usable information and watching your nostrils flare, I think I’m gonna go ahead and hit the hay.”

Derek can tell just by the way Stiles stands from his seat that he’s bothered beyond emotional rationality. Stiles pushes back on his chair, doesn’t lift it like he usually does, so it makes this awful grind against the kitchen floor. It’s loud and unpleasant, particularly to Derek’s sensitive ears that are trying to tune into the sounds of Stiles’ body. It's like Stiles knows Derek is listening in on his body too, like that scratching on the linoleum is a personal attack on Derek's senses.

Derek wonders how long he’s known Stiles now, that he can tell just by a single fluid movement where Stiles’ headspace is.

Stiles must be expecting Derek to show himself out, because he leaves the room without a backward glance. Derek does go toward the door, contemplates just leaving it all be, but rather than go (like he probably should), Derek pockets his keys and follows Stiles upstairs instead. When Derek makes it up there, Stiles is standing in his bedroom, threadbare pajama paints hanging loosely around his waist and a baggy sleeping shirt that looks cozy and soft, all loose by his collarbone. His toothbrush is hanging out of his toothpaste-foamed mouth and his brows are furrowed in confusion.

“Ahr thoart ywo lerft?”

Derek replies, “I’m still here.”

“Arvioushly,” Stiles mumbles with a roll of his eyes.

He refuses to meet Derek's stare after that and moves past Derek, back into the bathroom to spit in the sink. After he’s washed up, he returns to his room, where Derek is sitting on his bed.

Clearly bothered, Stiles crosses his arms and asks, "what are you still doing here?”

“What have you done to prepare for tomorrow?” Derek counters.

Stiles cocks a brow, feigning innocence and asks, “what’s tomorrow?”

Derek stares at him a long time, waiting.

It only takes about one full minute for Stiles to break.

Eventually, Stiles sighs and asks, “Scott told you?”

Not wanting to throw Scott under any potential proverbial buses, Derek doesn’t answer that.

Stiles shoulders tense up and he adds, “okay, maybe _not_ then, because if Scott _were_ the one who told you, he would have also told you that I _don’t want to talk about it_.”

“I’m not asking you to talk about it,” Derek says calmly, “I’m asking what you’ve done to prepare for tomorrow.”

Stiles’ frustration is showing again. His irritation is manifesting in scents and sounds, making the very air wired and combustable.

Stiles gives a disbelieving look and asks, "what do you even mean?”

“Do you have an anchor?”

Stiles almost looks outraged, “I don’t _need_ a — I’m not one of you. I’m not a Were, I don’t need an _anchor_ , I don’t _lose_ control like that.”

“Sure you do,” Derek reasons, as though it's as simple and obvious as saying that it rains everywhere in the world or that the sun definitely sets in the west, “What’s your anchor?”

” _I_ lose control?” Stiles interrogates, his arms gesticulating widely, “That’s pretty rich coming from _you_ , Derek. You do realize I’ve done this for years, right? You realize that there was a time before you and all your bad decisions screwed up my life?”

Derek keeps his mouth a thin line while Stiles tries to coax a reaction from him.

“There _was_ an era of Pre-Derek," Stiles puts his hands out, palms up, "Yeah, I know - hard to believe. But there was! A time where I still _existed_ and _dealt_ with _my_ problems without _your_ shoddy, dim 'guiding light of reason.' I didn’t need your help when I was ten, twelve or fifteen and I don’t need it now. You’re not my Messiah, bestowing great wisdom unto me that will help me heal from her death. _I_ don’t lose control, and you know why?"

Keeping cool, Derek lets Stiles vent without interjecting at all.

" _I_ don't lose control because _I_ can’t _afford to_. I have my _dad_ to think about — it would _kill him_ to see me fall apart, and so I _can’t_. My dad and I are the pillars that keep each other upright and _you_ , stalking me into my room like a fucking weirdo creep and hanging around to talk to me about something you were definitely, _explicitly told_ I _don’t_ want to talk about just so you can come in here all high and mighty and _Ultra Mature_ about _anchors_ , like I’m some goddamn —"

Stiles stops talking because he finds himself jammed up against Derek, face tucked into Derek’s neck.

Derek’s body is a lot softer than he imagined. There’s a plushness to it, a give in the big muscles that makes him feel more than protected - a softness for comfort over hard muscle for guard.

He’s a little too shocked to move.

He feels Derek’s voice vibrate against him when Derek speaks.

"Humans need anchors. People need help. Friends need each other. You’re not alone right now.”

Stiles’ eyes water without his consent and he swallows a hot lump in his throat. There’s something about the way that Derek says ‘right now,’ that gets through to Stiles’ heart. Something real and grounding about saying, ‘I can tell that in this moment you feel alone, but that feeling is not reality, because I am here with you in this moment, in this pain that is happening right now.’

Derek’s broad hand sweeps over the back of his head gently, his arms come around Stiles, strong and reassuring. Capable. Brave. Ready. 

“You don’t get used to it,” Derek explains quietly, “You live around it. Like a big hole in the middle of a living room floor. You arrange the furniture around it, you avoid it when you can. You never forget about it. You just work around it. And it sucks, but that's the deal.”

“How the hell am I supposed to get better at this then?” Stiles asks weakly.

Derek’s breath is warm against the side of his head and even the sensation of Derek’s scruff on him as Derek leans his head over his comes as a strange comfort. 

“Pack, Stiles," Derek answers, "This is when you turn to your Pack and you let them in. You let them help.”

They pull apart from one another so that Derek can look into Stiles’ eyes properly. He holds onto Stiles’ shoulders firmly and says with conviction, “I will be your pillar. I will keep you upright. So will Scott, so will Lydia, so will Kira — we want to be here for you. You just have to let us.”

Stiles means to sigh, but his tears fall instead and then he’s gathered up in Derek’s arms again and it’s like the floodgates are opened. He hides his face in Derek’s chest and shakes there for a while, telling Derek he's sorry for mouthing off and he's sorry for being rude and he's just sad, and he's just lonely, and he's just scared, and he just misses her and he's sorry, sorry, sorry.

Derek’s hands move over his back soothingly and he doesn’t say things other people have told Stiles when he’s cried, like, ‘it will be okay,’ or 'it will get easier,’ or 'she wouldn’t want you to cry.’

Derek just allows him to wallow in his pain for a while and it’s somehow freeing instead of emasculating.

After a while, Derek moves them both onto Stiles’ bed, tucks Stiles in and lies down beside him for about an hour. Stiles’ eyes become heavy and blurry from the crying and his head starts to ache and his sinuses hurt too - that always happens when he cries, though.

Derek pets Stiles’ hair back with an impossibly gentle hand and uses his healing to suck away the dull aches. That soothing gesture helps Stiles to fall asleep and when he wakes in the morning, Derek is gone, but a glass of water rests on his bedside table for him. When he sits up in bed to drink from it, he sees a bouquet sitting on his computer desk. 

 

* * *

 

Stiles is sure Derek never breathed a word about that night, because, well - he's _Derek_. He doesn't talk about _feelings_ and on the blue moons that he does, he definitely doesn't _disclose details_ about it.

Nevertheless, Stiles is still somehow surprised that it remains between them. That stolen moment, where Derek was exactly what he needed when he needed it like no one has ever done for him before. And it replays in Stiles’ head like a broken record. Like a fantasy.

He’s day-dreamt before about what it might be like to get his tongue on Derek, to touch Derek, to be touched by him and make him cum. After the anniversary of his mother’s death, though, Stiles’ thoughts take on a different tone.

He starts wondering what it might be like to hold Derek’s hand and run his fingers along the inside of Derek's palm. He wonders what it might feel like to have Derek’s hands to touch, freely, like it's normal for him to do and safe for him to do.

He dreams about combing his fingers through Derek’s hair, maybe while they lounge on the couch and watch a movie, in a space and a time where it’s warm and comfortable and intimate and safe. He tries to imagine what making _love_ to Derek would be like, what holding Derek through Laura’s birthday would be like — the difference from before is that he stops just wondering what it all might be like and he starts _wanting_.

He _wants_ to be more for Derek. He wants to be Derek’s pillar. He wants to hold Derek through a lonely night, he wants to give Derek butterfly kisses when it’s hard to wake up in the morning, he wants to crack Derek’s back for him when it's achey, wants to help Derek fold his laundry, wants to be welcome in Derek’s personal space without any real reason for it. 

It’s the wanting that does him in.

The wondering was all well and good, safe and distant and unobtainable. Perfect. 

The wanting is insufferable, though.

So, without any form of permission, he goes over the Hale file in his dad’s office one day, about six weeks after the anniversary of his mother’s death.

He puts the date of the Hale family memorial service into his phone and does all he can; he waits.

He waits to be more.

 

* * *

 

Derek looks so unassumingly sweet and soft in his sweatpants and cotton shirt, Stiles is almost derailed from his original purpose for showing up uninvited.

Derek’s hair is cutely tousled and looks recently towel-dried, he’s barefoot and he’s holding a steaming mug of tea in one hand. He appears to be the personification of ease and relaxation, but Stiles sees the tense line of Derek’s shoulders. He can see the ghosts floating around Derek’s eyes.

“It’s ten p.m on a weeknight,” Derek states.

“Had to wait for the Sheriff to get himself into bed before I could sneak out.”

Casually, Stiles smiles, twirls his keys on his finger and waits for invitation inside. Derek does eventually step aside to let Stiles through and into the loft, though it appears to be with great confusion. There’s a beat up radio by the French windows that’s playing old, crackly instrumental jazz and the moonlight is the only thing lighting the entire loft. 

Stiles looks around a little bit, stops spinning his keys and turns around to look at Derek again. He asks innocuously, “does the moonlight help keep you calm?”

Derek gives a short nod and Stiles nods back, looks around and then asks curiously, “do you, like, feel it? Like, do you feel a difference when you’re under moonlight?”

Tilting his head with gentle intrigue, Derek steps back into the living room space. He is watching Stiles closely.

“Yeah. I feel a difference.”

Stiles swallows, suddenly nervous and feeling underprepared. He points to the radio and asks, “and what exactly is the jazz about?”

“My mother used to listen to this in the mornings,” Derek replies.

Stiles stays completely still, wanting Derek to continue of his own volition.

There’s some kind of silent communication that goes on, because Derek understands what he doesn’t say and he elaborates, “she’d be in the kitchen at five every morning and make breakfast for everyone. She’d play this station low. I never needed an alarm.”

Smiling fondly at the story, Stiles sits down on Derek’s couch and takes off his shoes. He stretches out and, feeling daring, he spreads his arms in a welcoming gesture. He’s a little shocked when Derek takes the invitation and comes into his space, sits between his legs and leans back onto him. Derek sets his mug on the cocktail table in front of them and lets his weight rest against Stiles’ chest. 

Derek’s arms are big and his body is denser than Stiles remembers it being in the pool. He emits warmth like a radiator and Stiles savors it without saying anything about it; he doesn't want to freak Derek out with weird compliments about his body heat. He fits his chin in Derek’s sweet smelling hair and shuts his eyes comfortably. He clasps his arms around Derek’s torso and asks quietly, “do you wanna talk about them?”

“No,” Derek answers, “But I’m glad you’re here.”

Stiles spares just a moment to be embarrassed for how his heart reacts to that.

He replies, “glad to be of service, Big Guy.”

He pets through Derek’s hair some of the night and when he hears Derek give a soft snore, it’s like Christmas morning.

He has to pee and his left leg is almost entirely asleep, but he has absolutely no desire to move.

While Derek sleeps against him, he presses a kiss to the crown of Derek’s head, glad to be there.

About two hours into that, Derek wakes up on a gasp, startled and immediately upright, clearly remembering something, but he opts not to share, which Stiles doesn't bug him about.

Derek rubs a hand over his hair then looks over his shoulder at Stiles. His expression is hard to read, but Stiles understands anyway. He gets up, goes to the bathroom and returns to Derek’s bed. 

There’s cuddling that is never mentioned by either of them.

Stiles makes sure he’s gone before Derek wakes up and also makes a special note to shut the radio off on his way out.

He knows it was the right thing to do at nine in the morning, when he gets a single text:

**Derek: Thank you.**

 

* * *

 

“How could you possibly know about today?” Stiles asks incredulously.

On the day of his mother's birthday, Derek is stepping into his bedroom from the window, leather-jacket-and-boot-clad, looking entirely out of place. Stiles almost misses the days he didn’t find that nauseatingly charming.

Derek doesn’t answer; just like the first time.

They stare at each other for a long few moments before Stiles’ voice comes, low and unsure.

“Do you like me at all?”

Derek doesn’t move an inch or even an eyebrow, so Stiles adds, “like, do you do this because you feel some weird, misplaced sense of responsibility for me? Or do you… cause, I mean, I’d understand — I get the whole ‘oh, I got these teenagers wrapped up in my fucked up, supernatural life and I gotta get right with Werewolf Jesus and help them out,’ but I’d like to know. I don’t want you to feel responsible for me and I definitely don’t want you to be here if you don’t, you know… wanna be here. So…”

He trails off for a while, heart hammering. Then he asks, “...what do you feel about me?”

Derek’s eyes are very focused on him.

The green and blue of Derek’s irises are sometimes calming, but now they’re nerve-wracking. Too beautiful to look away from, though.

“I care about you deeply,” Derek answers.

Stiles swallows loudly.

“So, you found out my mother’s birthday and came to keep me company because you care about me deeply? No ulterior motives to that? Not even well-intentioned ones?”

Without warning, Derek steps up into his space, but Stiles has long since grown fond of Derek invading his personal space, so he makes no objections. He doesn’t back up and certainly doesn’t submit. Only looks Derek in the eyes, terrifying and impossibly beautiful.

One moment, they’re gazing into each other’s eyes and the next, Stiles’ eyes are shut and his lips are warm against Derek’s and he's not sure how it happened, but he definitely doesn't want it to stop.

And Derek’s lips are full, they’re soft, they’re a gentle pressure that speaks of control and want. He’s so warm, radiating that _heat_ still and his scruff is this rough contrast that’s like a perfect salty and sweet combination. 

Derek pulls his lips back slowly and Stiles’ eyes stay shut for a moment, too afraid to open his eyes and find that he’s dreamt this all (like he has a thousand times). When he does open his eyes, Derek is smiling shyly at him and his eyes are glistening and Stiles suddenly _gets it_.

“Oh,” he says dumbly.

“Mm,” Derek agrees.

Stiles can’t help the smile that spreads over his face, because he feels like it’s the beginning of something and now the date of his mother’s birthday will be the start of something new. It won’t just be a reminder of the person who used to be there, but it will be the day something beautiful happened, not just a stale reminder of what he's lost. A date when something wonderful and incredible happened that Stiles can associate it with. He's glad his mother was born, but he usually spends this day missing her and now - now he can spend this day waiting for Derek Hale to come climbing through his window, ready to hold him through whatever monster or emotion comes his way.

“You should probably kiss me again,” Stiles suggests, moving back towards his bed, indicating they should kiss on his bed, “No pressure, I mean, I only want to do whatever _you_ want to do, but, just so you know, I personally think there should be more kissing. Of me. By you. And by me. Of you. Mutually beneficial kissing. If that’s cool.”

Derek shakes his head fondly and follows Stiles’ lead, stripping his jacket and muttering sweetly, “and here, I thought you'd never ask."


End file.
